A team with Greg Ostertag, Adam Keefe, and Greg Foster making the playoffs is a miracle.
Even the "Big 3" have a few decent players to go along with their superstars. Udonis, Anthony, Miller, and Chalmers could have played big minutes for the Jazz.
Dallas has a ton of talent too. Tyson Chandler is a top 5 center in this league.
The problem with the Jazz was never their 2 best players... It was what they had surrounding them...
If healthy - Seikaly would've provided Utah with the scoring punch they had always been looking for at the pivot. The Jazz simply wanted him to report to SLC so they could examine the extent of his foot injury - but he didn't want to do that without Utah making gaurantees about his contract situation..
Utah had just given Chicago their toughest championship series ever. If they had a roster shakeup and failed to reach the finals – the whiners would be saying “The Bulls were a weaker team in ’98, we should’ve just kept the same team.” .
The Bulls went through the same thing Utah did – only worse. Scottie Pippen missed twice as many games as Stockton did and not only did Chicago have a weaker bench than the Jazz, but Jordan had to play the most minutes he had in any season since 1990. Bulls management further depleted their bench by trading away Jason Caffey - their only serviceable big off the bench for nothing in return, and Pippen played Game 6 of the finals with a severely limiting back injury.
Yes, the Fuller trade (only for a 2nd-rnd pick but Fuller was still terrible) and Chilcutt signing sucked, they signed Gilliam after he was waived at midseason when he was the best FA available so that was the best option at the time. However, when you consider the fact that Kevin O’Connor was working for the 76ers during all those moves, I have a hard time blaming him for those transactions
I dont care how close the Jazz were in 97, when you go and get your butts kicked you just dont come back with the exact same team, especially when your main players are all pushing 35. If KM/John/Horny were all in their late 20s I'd agree. But clearly they needed better help. They only got ayear older in 1998.
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Keefe was the 3rd-string SF in '97 behind Russell and Morris. The only reason Keefe was in the starting lineup in '98 was because Bryon Russell asked out of the lineup at the beginning of the season because he was struggling so bad and the Jazz weren't winning. They put Keefe in and started winning so they kept that lineup until the playoffs. When Keefe played against Chicago - it was at PF/C because Chicago was playing an illegal defense and not even pretending to guard Foster/Ostertag. But yeah, in the finals Keefe sucked and could barely make a layup.They kept Adam Keefe as the starting SF. What a idiotic move as the guy had zero skills and they did not learn that from 97. He went on to average 2.8 ppg ad 3.4 rbg versus the Bulls while getting destroyed on defense. But he was hard worker and got to the right spots on the floor.